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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MOL-MOS |
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MOORHEAD , a city and the county-seat of Clay county, Minnesota, U.S.A., opposite Fargo, North Dakota, on the E. bank of the Red River and about 215 M. N.W. of Minneapolis. Pop. (1890), 2088; (1900), 3730; (1905), 4794; (1910), 484o. Moorhead is served by the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific railways. The city is the seat of one of the state normal schools (1888) and of Concordia College (Norwegian Lutheran; 1891), which in 1907-1908 had 500 students. Moorhead, named in honour of James K. Moorhead (18o6- 1884), a Republican representative in Congress from Pennsylvania
village
MOOR-HEN,' the name by which a bird, often called water-hen and sometimes gallinule, is most commonly known in England. An earlier name was moat-hen, which was appropriate in the days when a moat was the ordinary adjunct of most considerable houses in the country. It is the Gallinula chloropus of ornithologists, about the size of a small bantam-hen, but with the body
bright in the spring of the year, and a red garter on the tibia render it very showy. Though often frequenting the neighbourhood of man, the moor-hen seems unable to overcome the inherent stealthy habits of the Rallidae, and hastens to hide itself on the least alarm; but under exceptional circumstances it may be induced to feed, yet always suspiciously, with tame ducks and poultry. It appears to take wing with difficulty, and may be often caught by an active dog; but, in reality, it is capable of sustained flight, its longer excursions being chiefly performed by night, when the peculiar call
house
Allied to all these is the genus Porphyrio, including the bird so named by classical writers, and perhaps a dozen other species often called sultanas and purple water-hens, for they all have a plumage of deep bluesome becoming violet, green, or black in parts but preserving the white lower tail-coverts, so generally characteristic of the group; and their beauty is enhanced by their scarlet bill and legs. Two, P. 'aileni of the Ethiopian region' and' the South American P. parva, are of small size. 1 Not to be confounded with " Moor-cock " or " Moor-fowl," names formerly in general use for the red grouse. 9Proe. Zoot. Soc. (1861), p. 26o, pl. xxx. 19 A somewhat intermediate form seems to be presented by the moor=hen of the island of St Denis, to the north of Madagascar (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1867, p. 1036). ' Ann. Mit History, 3rd sries,-xx. 123.Of the larger species, P. caeruleus is the " Porphyrio " of the ancients, and inhabits certain localities on both sides of the Mediterranean, while the rest are widely dispersed within the tropics, and even beyond them, as in Australia and New Zealand. But this last country has produced a more exaggerated form, Notornis, which has an interesting and perhaps unique history. First described from a fossil skull by Sir R. Owen,' and then thought to be extinct, an example was soon after taken alive,' the skin of which (with that of another procured like the first by Walter Mantell) may be seen in the British Museum. Other fossil remains were from time to time noted by Sir R. Owen '; but it began to be feared that the bird had ceased. to exist,8 until a third example was taken about the year 1879, the skin and most of the bones of which, after undergoing examination in New Zealand by Sir W. Buller and T. J. Parker,9 found their way to the museum of Dresden, where A. B. Meyer discovered the recent
OCYDROME
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